William Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors, adapted by Jeffrey Renn, brought me great joy last night at the University of Victoria’s Phoenix Theatre; it’s a creative and colourful farcical comedy and the soundtrack to this “pop musical reboot” of the play is great.
As those who are familiar with the play know, it’s all about the twins. It’s a little hard to distinguish between them; the only way I could tell them apart was their voices. The actresses playing the twins were amazing. Emma Grabinsky (the Canadian Dromio) and Chantal Gallant (the American Dromio) fulfilled their roles wonderfully with their natural acting, well-exaggerated facial expressions, and body language. And most impressive of all is that their acting styles are so similar: if I didn’t read the cast list I would definitely have believed that they are real twins.
The other actors’ and actresses’ body movements and gestures stay true to the characters they play; each person brings a different personality and a bit of joy and humour to the play to make it whole.
The combination of classic and modern music made the play more joyful, and it totally contributes to each scene. However, sometime the music is too loud and the actors’ dialogue wasn’t clear enough. Also, I found it distracting that the stage was set up with a mirrored wall behind it; because so many actors and actresses on the stage danced and sang in the first five minutes, the mirror made it look messy and hard to focus on the main character. It’s less of a problem as the play goes on, when there are fewer people on the stage.
Overall, everyone involved transferred The Comedy of Errors successfully from the original to this modern version. This is a two-hour play that is worth sitting through every second, as was proved by the endless applause at the end of the show.
The Comedy of Errors
Various times, until Saturday, March 24
Various prices, UVic’s Phoenix Theatre
finearts.uvic.ca